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podcast description
Episodes
Learn HOW to learn Chinese with hosts Jared Turner and John Pasden. You will learn tips, strategies, and insights so you can supercharge your language learning. You will also be inspired by guest interviews with people from all over the world who have learned Chinese.
Both Jared and John both learned Chinese, lived in China for many years, and have worked with learners all over the world and understand the unique challenges that Chinese learners face. They stay at the forefront of language learning research and methods and bring that to listeners everywhere.
Is handwriting Chinese characters slowing you down? In today’s digital world, does it still make sense to focus on writing by hand or should you just type? In this episode, Jared and John dive deep into this hot-button issue for Chinese learners: handwriting vs. typing.
Pulling insights from a research paper by Chinese Breeze creator Chengzhi Chu (储诚志), they explore how character instruction is evolving and why prioritizing typing can make your learning faster, more efficient, and less frustrating, especially for adult learners.
They’ll break down:
Why typing Chinese is not “cheating”, it’s how Chinese is actually used today
How handwriting can become a bottleneck to fluency and motivation
What it really means to “know” a character in the modern era
The myth of muscle memory and why stroke order perfection isn’t essential
Why it’s okay to treat handwriting as a hobby, not a core skill
You’ll also hear how character writing has changed more in the past 20 years than the previous 2000, the ”three eras” of Chinese writing, and how modern teachers are shifting to a “typing-first, handwriting-second” approach in classrooms around the world.
If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by handwriting or wondered if you’re “doing it wrong” by typing, this episode will give you the clarity, and permission, you need to move forward confidently.
Links from the episode:
The Evolution of Hanzi Proficiency and the E-Writing Transformation of L2 Chinese Teaching in the Digital Age | Paper by Chengzhi Chu
Learn Chinese Characters by Reading (the book)
Learn Chinese Characters by Reading (free resources for 200 characters)
